To confirm, or not to confirm

Unless the FBI uncovers facts to back up allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, members of the U.S. Senate should vote to confirm him.

The situation is that simple.

Senate Democrats who oppose Kavanaugh have perfected the art of the moving target. First, they insisted that if he is seated on the nation’s highest court, he somehow will overturn decades of precedents on abortion rights. Never mind that Kavanaugh would be just one vote among nine justices.

Then, Democrats turned to a claim that if Kavanaugh is confirmed, millions of Americans with pre-existing health care conditions will lose insurance coverage. Never mind that neither Kavanaugh nor others on the Supreme Court have the power to do that: Congress, if it acts constitutionally, can enact whatever laws it chooses on health insurance.

Next, Democrats pulled what they thought was their trump card. After keeping their information secret since July, they came forward with an allegation by a California professor, Christine Blasey Ford, that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her while both she and he were in high school. Ford says that while she was 15 and Kavanaugh was 17, both were at a party when he pinned her on a bed, tried to remove her bathing suit and clamped a hand over her mouth. Then, she says, one of Kavanaugh’s friends fell on them and she escaped.

Kavanaugh says it never happened. So does the friend, named Mark Judge.

There were no other witnesses to the alleged assault. Investigators have been able to find no one who remembers hearing of such an incident.

Two other women have come forth with other claims of sexual misbehavior by the nominee. Neither has any credibility.

For hours during a hearing last week, Democrat senators insisted the only way to confirm or deny Ford’s allegation is for the FBI to conduct a full investigation of it. At President Donald Trump’s order, the agency is looking into all three claims. It is to provide a report by the end of the week.

Perhaps sensing the FBI will not come up with anything new — or maybe because they know it cannot — Democrat senators have moved the target again.

Now, they say Kavanaugh’s impassioned defense of himself last week shows he lacks the temperament to be a Supreme Court justice. And, they say, he misled them last week.

About what? In response to inane questions about his high school yearbook? About whether he ever vomited after drinking beer?

In their blind rage over Trump’s nomination, many Senate Democrats have launched a political inquisition. They will not be satisfied until they have demonstrated they can burn anyone’s reputation at the stake.

Enough is enough. This no longer is a circus of the type most people envision. It is one of the sort the Romans staged.

If the FBI finds any credible evidence against Kavanaugh, he should not be confirmed. If it does not, he should be confirmed and sent to the Supreme Court — with the Senate’s apology.